The present invention relates to data flow between network devices in a computer network and more particularly to the energy efficient control of data link groups used for carrying data between network devices.
Link aggregation technology was developed to help achieve higher link speeds between network devices connected by parallel data links. Network devices normally have multiple input/output ports, each including a communication adapter that provides the interface between the network device and a data link.
Parallel data links are aggregated into link groups that share the data to be transported between two network devices. The aggregated capacity of a link group is, of course, greater than the data capacity of any of the individual data links in the group. For example, if five parallel 1 Gb/s Ethernet links are defined as members of the same link group, the aggregated link speed of the group is 5 Gb/s even though each member of the group remains limited to a 1 Gb/s link speed.
Known link aggregation technology requires that all links a defined link group remain enabled whenever the link group is in use, even where data traffic could be handled by less than all of the links in the link group.